A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Monday, April 24, 2017

On April 24, 1915, one day before the British landings on the Gallipoli peninsula, Ottoman authorities under orders from the Interior Minister, Talaat Pasha, rounded up Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople and deported them to the east. This event, which came to be known as "Red Sunday," has traditionally been seen as the beginning of the Armenian removals and subsequent massacres, and April 24 is now commemorated as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, a national holiday in Armenia, also marked in Lebanon, California, and elsewhere. Though numbers are still controversial, a number of 1.5 million dead is widely accepted.

The Armenian tragedy has had echoes throughout the 102 years since Red Sunday. In 1921, Talaat Pasha, with both British and Russian intelligence trying to locate him, was assassinated by an Armenian revolutionary. The following year, Djemal Pasha, a second member of the CUP triumvirate, who had been Governor of Syria, where most Armenians died, and had fled to Afghanistan, was sent to Tiflis in the Soviet Union (today Tbilisi in Georgia) to negotiate with the Bolsheviks. There, he too was assassinated by Armenian nationalists. In the course of 1920-1922, the Armenian revenge movement known as Operation Nemesis, assassinated seven former senior Ottoman officials.

One of the most notorious invocations of the Armenian Genocide is attributed to Adolf Hitler as war broke out in Europe in 1939, on August 22, 10 days before attacking Poland, Hitler spoke to his Wehrmacht generals at a meeting in Obersalzburg. At Nuremberg, several variant transcripts were in evidence, but some contained the line, in urging his generals to treat Poland harshly in order to provide Lebensraum for Germany, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" (Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?)

Like almost everything aboutthe Armenian tragedy,the quote itself has been challenged, but its implication that Hitler might have moved from the Vernichtung of the Armenians to the European Holocaust is frequently cited.In the 102 years from April 24, 1915 to today, genocide has reared its head many times, from Cambodia to Rwanda, and massive population displacement has become commonplace. It seems humanity has learned little. On this Armenian Remembrance Day, Armenians worldwide will take note, but non-Armenians may wish to pause and reflect as well.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The past three days mark the 100th anniversary of the Second Battle of Gaza, part of the Palestine Campaign in World War I. In an ironic echo of the present, it also marked the first use of poison gas in the Middle East campaign, as well as the first use of tanks.

As we saw in discussing the First Battle of Gaza in March (Part I and Part II), the British command in effect snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by ordering a retreat, despite the fact that ANZAC Mounted troops were already in the midst of Gaza town. They feared the arrival of Turkish reinforcements and the fall of darkness.

The overall commanders, Egyptian Expeditionary Force commander General Sir Archibald Murray, and Eastern Force Commander General Sir Charles Dobell began preparing for another attempt. Both minimized the first loss in their reports and predicted a successful second attack. Both men in effect were putting their reputations on the line.

After the first battle, the Ottoman forces had be reinforced. There were now three regiments defending Gaza proper, with additional regiments at Hareira (now Tel Haror in Israel)nd others at other points along the road between Gaza and Beersheba. The Ottomans and their German allies had fortified a series of trenches interspersed with strong defensive redoubts and enfilading fire. New German aircraft had arrived, making the air war component more equal. Both sides had discovered the advantages of aircraft in open desert reconnaissance.

Meanwhile, the British had been reinforced with two weapons already in use on the Western Front: a supply of poison gas shells, in this case containing a 50/50 blend of phosgene and chlorine gas; and eight Mark I tanks. The Mark I was the British first generation tank introduced in 1915. Though history would prove desert to be excellent tank country in future wars, the gullies and arroyos around Gaza and the Turkish trenches made it hard to pass; and the Mark I had a maximum speed of only six kilometers per hour and a tendency to break down. Of the eight tanks, two were knocked out in the opening attack and a third later. And though the Turks had no gas masks, the gas attack, when launched, reportedly dissipated in the desert air without significant effect.

Dobell favored a direct frontal attack, accompanied by a swing to the right around the main Gaza lines by the Desert Column. Desert Column Commander Sir Philip Chetwode and ANZAC Commander Harry Chauvel expressed doubts, favoring an attack on the coastal flank of the Turkish lines.

On April 17 and 18, the advance began with the British infantry advancing from the Wadi Ghuzze to engage the forward Turkish outposts. Turkish resistance was fierce and after two days of fighting, they were at their desired position but had captured only outlying outposts.

The fighting on the 19th was complex and need not be described in tactical detail. Resistance was fierce and casualties mounted. British and Empire forces succeeded in penetrating the Ottoman lines in several places, but each time they were met with counterattack which drove them back. The next morning, British positions were bombed by German aircraft, and Turkish cavalry was massing near Hareira. It was decided to withdraw. Losses were high, and the defeat more decisive than in the first battle.

Aftermath

With its manpower depleted, the EEF campaign to take Jerusalem was put on hold. Murray decided to make the Canadian Dobell the scapegoat. He was relieved of command and packed off to India. Chetwode, a better and more experienced general, replaced him ans head of Eastern Force; and Harry Chauvel, the ANZAC Light Horseman, took over the Desert Column. In August it would be renamed the Desert Mounted Force, and Chauvel, one of the last great cavalry commanders, would lead it in a series of charges at Beersheba, Megiddo, and into Jerusalem, Damascus, and Aleppo. The Light Horse would win fame for Australian arms, and Chauvel would become Australia's first full General.

Murray (Seven Pillars)

But not under Murray's command. Murray has been a patron of the Arab revolt, a sponsor of T.E. Lawrence (the David Lean film does him an injustice), and a victor over the Senussi (Sanusi) and in the Sinai. But the two defeats at Gaza in two months, after his confident predictions, was too much and he was recalled and given command of the Army training center at Aldershot. He continued to recive promotions, but held no more field commands.

The search for a new commander was not smooth. General Jan Smuts, Commander of the South African Army and a member of the Imperial War Council, refused the assignment. In June, a former cavalry commander and Boer War veteran (though in that war he was the opposite side from Smuts), but who had been enjoying a rapid rise on the Western Front until suffering a setback. Still a believer that the West was the real war, he first considered it a joke, but accepted. His name: Edmund Allenby.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Drastic changes to a constitutional system are not to be undertaken lightly. Many systems. like the US, make amendments extremely difficult. Supermajorities are often necessary. Yet, despite suppressing the media and silencing the opposition, Recep Tayyicp Erdoğan's referendum squeaked through with a 51-49 "Yes" vote, losing in all the country's major cities hardly a resounding endorsement. Erdoğan's victory is being disputed over a decision to count ballots not properly stamped.

Some intelligent commentary: Yavuz Baydar at The Guardian, "Erdoğan’s referendum victory spells the end of Turkey as we know it." On a similar theme, Steven A. Cook at Foreign Policy laments "RIP Turkey 1921-2017." Cook acknowledges that the Turkish Republic was far from a perfect democracy, but I feel he overstates the break between the Ottomans and the Republic (the Ottomans wrote constitutions in 1876 and 1909, and Westernization began with the Tanzimat). And while he acknowledges flaws in the Republic, I feel he understates the authoritarianism of the Kemalist era, not to mention the interludes of military rule.

The Erdoğan/AKP phenomenon is, as both authors recognize, a reaction to the excessive secularism of the Kemalist era, and part of a (global?) reaction of conservative, religious, rural and small town voters resentful of the urban secular elites who they feel have looked down on them for years. But their revenge may come at the price of Erdoğan's authoritarian ambitions.

Unless you're Egyptian or Sudanese, or have hung out in one of those countries, or
are an Arab who's watched a lot of Egyptian movies, you may not know
about the holiday celebrated today. Yet arguably it may be the oldest
holiday celebrated anywhere, and its name may preserve an ancient Egyptian name.

Sham al-Nassim
is Arabic, and the words mean "smelling the air," or "smelling the
breezes" if you prefer. Other than the specifically patriotic days,
such as the National Day, Military Day, etc., it's the only Egyptian
holiday celebrated with equal ardor by Muslims and Copts, and by Jews
when Egypt's Jewish population was significant. For the past couple of
thousand years, it has been celebrated on the Monday after Coptic Easter
(which coincides with the general Eastern date for Easter), thus today.

Egyptians
of all religious identities get the day off and picnic along the Nile,
if they live near it, or go to parks if they don't, eat a dried fish
called fassikh and several other traditional spring treats (though my memories of fassikh are not all that endearing: just dry, salty fish), and generally "smell the air" of spring. (According to this site, they also paint eggs. I don't recall seeing that, and perhaps it's a Western Easter import, or I just missed it.)

That's just for the past couple of millennia, though. Wikipedia's article notes the purported link to the ancient Egyptian feast of Shemu,
"creation" or "new life," celebrated at the spring equinox, which has
been documented (at least according to Wikipedia and its Egyptian
source) to 2700 BC in the Third Dynasty. On the other hand, Wikipedia's separate "Shemu" article
suggests it was a movable feast in the dry (low Nile) season.
Presumably the feast shifted with the advent of Christianity to coincide
closely with Coptic Easter, but remained essentially a spring
equinoctial celebration. Since the Muslim calendar is purely lunar, the
holiday stayed, like some others (including the Nile flood holiday),
linked to the Coptic calendar. Somewhere I believe I've read that
Plutarch even mentions the Egyptians eating dried fish at the equinox:
if so, fassikh
has been around a while. (On the other hand I tracked down a reference
to this Plutarch statement, and it was Wikipedia citing the Egyptian
State Information Service, and the State Information Service link just
goes to the main page. So the scholarship here may be a little edgy. I'm
no Egyptologist: I start with the Arab conquest and come down from
there.) (Egyptology/Coptology/Late Antiquity Grad students: term paper
subject? Send me your results.)

Like Easter itself,
which in English at least combines a Christian feast central to
Christian belief, but based on the date of Jewish Passover, with a
Germanic word relating to fertility (compare "estrus"), Sham al-Nassim
is a historical palimpsest, a syncretistic hodgepodge, that has —
besides being a great spring holiday for Egyptians of all faiths or none
— finally given me the rare opportunity to use "palimpsest,"
"syncretistic," and "hodgepodge" all in the same sentence. (Class, you
may use your dictionaries.) The ancient Egyptian spring festival was
first baptized by placing it on Coptic Easter Monday, then Islamized or
at least Egyptized by being adopted as the spring holiday for everybody
regardless of religion.

I think the only other ancient Egyptian feast that survives in the Egyptian calendar today may be the Wafa' al-Nil
in August, celebrating the Nile flood and also retaining elements of
pagan, Christian and Muslim eras, but fading a bit I think since the end
of the annual flood with the building of the Aswan High Dam.

The use of a GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Gravity Bomb (MOAB) in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, today by the United States is being treated as a major news story and a potential escalation. It may prove to be both, but the sheer explosive power of the ordnance, while newsworthy, may not be as dramatic an escalation as some are portraying it.

Before I explain what I mean, let me clarify something: I am no enthusiast for the ongoing war in Afghanistan. After 16 years, the US is the latest power to find itself fighting a seemingly endless war in a land with a long track record of defeating invaders. I'm not defending either the war or the choice of aerial bombing as a weapon, merely commenting on a tactical decision.

While the GBU-43 is indeed the largest non-nuclear explosive in the current US arsenal, that may not equate to greater lethality. (And the Russians have a bigger one.) Other types of weapons, such as thermobaric or fuel-air explosives, can be extremely lethal. And while the 20,000+ pound bomb is he heaviest in the US arsenal. it is partly a successor to the 15,000 BLU-82 "Daisy Cutter" developed to clear jungle for helicopter landing zones, and later in Iraq for mine clearance.

The GBU-43 was originally developed for use in the 2003 Iraq War, but the war was fast-moving and the weapon is not appropriate for urban areas. Though the weapon was deployed during the Obama Administration and its use planned, the Trump Administration is now claiming credit.

Not every target is suitable for such a weapon; some are better suited to ten one-ton bombs than one ten-ton bomb. The total tonnage dropped in most modern wars is what matters, except for the psychological effort.

Afterthought: If this were purely aimed at collapsing the caves, why even announce the weapon used used? It's a tactical decision using a weapon in the known arsenal, so the decision to publicize was for effect.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Passover begins at Sundown tonight. Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and since this year both the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity celebrate Easter on the same date this year, Passover and Holy Week coincide closely, sadly punctuated by the horrific bombings in Tanta and Alexandria. Despite the horror, my holiday wishes to both Jewish and Christian readers.

Friday, April 7, 2017

Yesterday, writing about the US attack on Sha'irat airbase in Syria, I posted a Google Earth image of the base; that was indeed the base the US attacked. But if you zoom in, you will find the image is labeled, in Arabic, as Tiyas Military Airbase (image below):

But Sha'irat, which is in fact pictured, is not only a different base than Tiras, though, is a much larger base, also known as T-4, which lies astride the main road from Homs to Palmyra, and before the civil war would be seen by anyone en route to Palmyra.

Google's labeler screwed up the label.

The tactical pilotage chart below shows he location of both bases: Sha'irat at far left and Tiras to the right.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

I doubt if anyone who read my Tuesday post will mistake me for an Asad apologist. I do feel that a multilateral international response was called for, and worried that tonight's unilateral cruise missile attack may have been a little precipitate, but if the intelligence that the chemical attacks were launched from the Sha'irat air base, then it seems to be a proportionate response. I would hope the intelligence and military briefers had time to game out potential responses and escalation scenarios. Is there a strategic plan, or was this just a don't-just-stand-there-do-something knee-jerk reaction?

Whether it justified the expense of 59 Tomahawks must wait for a daylight bomb damage assessment (BDA).

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

In certain circles, it has become almost fashionable to defend the Bashar al-Asad regime; oddly in the US the temptation seems to seduce not only the ideological right but also the ideological left. Outside of Syria's Russian, Iranian, and Hizbullah enablers, it is time for the scales to fall from their eyes. The chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Shaykhun in Idlib province.

It is true that the Syrian regime denies it was behind the attack and claims it is a "false flag"operation by the opposition. Notwithstanding the fact that witnesses said the attack was delivered by a Sukhoi Su-22 with Arabic markings. The only air forces in Syria flying Su-22s are Syria's and Russia's, and I doubt the Russians would do the dirty work themselves.

The death toll is said to be somewhere in the 80s, including at least 25 children. Most accounts say the gas was Sarin, but those are preliminary reads, and chlorine, which Syria also has used.an have similar symptoms.

But wait! Didn't Syria agree in 2013 to surrender all its chemical weapons? Well, yes, it did.

The world has responded as usual, with massive denunciations. (Though the US Trump Administration said it was the result of President Obama's failure to carry through on his "red line" threats in 2013, which it characterized as weakness, but it offered no prospect of strong action now.

Six years of war in Syria has produced nearly five million external refugees and over six million internally displaced persons. This is a humanitarian disaster of historic proportions. The Asad regime is not solely responsible, but an internationally recognized government systematically gassing its own people deserves no international tolerance.

I am not advocating American boots on the ground, since that almost always backfires, but instead of Russia and some in this country defending Asad, it is time to brand this regime a pariah like North Korea, and treat it as the renegade it has become. If the world cannot find a way, or the will, to stop the atrocities, it should end any pretense of toleration. My language may offend, but the far greater offense is Asad's; this is fucking barbarism, and it is time to call it by its proper name.

"Michael Collins Dunn is the editor of The Middle East Journal. He also blogs. His latest posting summarizes a lot of material on the Iranian election and offers some sensible interpretation. If you are really interested in the Middle East, you should check him out regularly."— Gary Sick, Gary's Choices

"Since we’re not covering the Tunisian elections particularly well, and neither does Tunisian media, I’ll just point you over here. It’s a great post by MEI editor Michael Collins Dunn, who . . . clearly knows the country pretty well."— alle, Maghreb Politics Review

"I’ve followed Michael Collins Dunn over at the Middle East Institute’s blog since its beginning in January this year. Overall, it is one of the best blogs on Middle Eastern affairs. It is a selection of educated and manifestly knowledgeable ruminations of various aspects of Middle Eastern politics and international relations in the broadest sense."— davidroberts at The Gulf Blog

"Michael Collins Dunn, editor of the prestigious Middle East Journal, wrote an interesting 'Backgrounder' on the Berriane violence at his Middle East Institute Editor’s Blog. It is a strong piece, but imperfect (as all things are) . . ."— kal, The Moor Next DoorThis great video of Nasser posted on Michael Collins Dunn’s blog (which is one of my favorites incidentally) ...— Qifa Nabki